Texas Health Hospitals to Receive Financial Awards f...(the quality of inpatient care. Through t...),Health

An analysis of mortality rates at hospitals participating in the project indicated that improvements made in the quality of care saved an estimated 4,700 heart attack patients nationwide during its first four years, according to Premier Inc.

The average Composite Quality Scores (CQS), an aggregate of all quality measures within each clinical area, improved significantly between the inception of the program and the end of Year 4 in all five clinical focus areas:

• From 87.5 percent to 96.3 percent for patients with heart attack;
• From 84.8 percent to 98.5 percent for patients with coronary artery bypass graft;
• From 64.5 percent to 92.2 percent for patients with heart failure;
• From 69.3 percent to 92.6 percent for patients with pneumonia;
• From 84.6 percent to 97.2 percent for patients with hip and knee replacement.
  

Hospitals participating in the project have three opportunities to receive financial incentives:

• Top Performer Award -- The top 20 percent of hospitals in each clinical area receive an additional incentive payment.
• Attainment Performance Award -- Hospitals that attain or exceed the median level composite quality score receive an additional incentive payment. The attainment median benchmark is the median level composite quality score from Year 2 of the project.
• Improvement Award -- Hospitals that attain median level performance and are among the top 20 percent of hospitals with the largest percentage quality improvements in each clinical area receive an additional incentive payment. Improvement is calculated based on the change in the hospital composite quality scor
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